Originally Posted by
camelopardalis
I too ventured warily into the world of clipless pedals. Learning to use the system at our late age is intimidating. First, I took the clipless shoes to the spinning classes at the gym and stayed longer to practice clipping in and out. When I finally tried it on a bike, I was already comfortable with them. Using very light tensioned SPD pedals definitely helped. It will prevent some falls when you forget to unclip on stops.
You will fall. That's part of the learning process. My falls were at very low speeds which did not create pain or injury.
After a while, as a lot of users have already stated, it becomes intuitive.
Self-fulfilling prophecy - if you think that you are doomed to fall, you are more likely to fall. Not everyone using clipless has fallen because of them.
I don't recall ever suffering a fall related to clipless, PowerGrips, or toe clips going back to the late '70s.
Perhaps those of us entering the clipless world after having used toe clips had an advantage of being somewhat used to riding with a foot retention system. I never used cleats with toe clips so I could always pull my feet out on demand.